Soldato
Indeed. The levers available to pull make much less of a difference today.
Boomerang Generation
- Thread starter chris.tarry85
- Start date
One thing I still have trouble getting my head around - my Grandad at only slightly older than my age and earning a little more (adjusted) but not order of magnitude more bought a nice house, really nice house - I could barely afford one of the 4 flats/apartments it has been split up into these days and he was also bringing up a family at the time. Before it was split into multiple dwellings the property was valued at approx. £2.8 million.
i have done the maths on based on averages from the nso and used figures for 21-24 for salary and adjusted for inflation the total earning for your bracket would be £123,022 over the 4 years with house price of £131,760. The same for current year is not as accurate as i haven't adjusted for inflation, but the earnings would be £149,255 with a house price of £194,301.
So overall its 23% more than the wage than it was before on average for the whole uk in 2017 vs 1995, so on average its 1 year extra of saving to get the equivalent deposit.
In your specific area of Ipswich they have a graph of average house price vs average wages (this is for all ages not younger workers who normally earn less anyway), it only goes from 1997 until 2018. It has risen from 3.0x the average wage to 6.8x the average wage. You can clearly see from this that the london area is much much worse than the average for the whole country. This is what is skewing peoples opinion on this so much.
The second thing that is skewing this is that in 1995 20% of people went to uni rather than getting a job, now that is nearer 32.5%. You also have to stay in education for an extra 2 years now as well.
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Soldato
Thank you, sort of. There are all sorts of questions on your figures but I'm going to pick on the one that says the average house price vs average ages has increased from 3x in 1997 to 6.8x in 2018.
So no, they don't. They have it incredibly more difficult than before.
yes in your specific area of ipswitch, its actually one of the best wage to house price ratios in london though.
I went through a company through appris in this area and you take their test and they send your test results and cv off to loads of engineering companies. It was pretty good tbh as applying for jobs individually takes ages. Also with linkin and various other networking tools, its quite a bit easier to find jobs than it used to be.
Wat. Ipswich is a 2.5 hour drive from London.
so 2.5 miles then?
Soldato
Why do you keep going on about London? Or has the influence of London made Ipswich more expensive and difficult to buy a first house? You do know that Ipswich is:
a) 70% mediocre at best
b) shrinking
c) on one of the most expensive main lines to London in the UK, and on one of the worst performing
d) not in London
But let's go back to the original point, capability to buy a first house. How's that calculation coming along?
That's all well and good, but we all know what average means don't we? That means that half of the working population WILL by definition always be below that figure no matter how hard they try, and based on how careers go this will generally be the younger end of the population until they've spent time and effort working their way up and playing the employment game.
To be fair it could easily take me that some days to go a few miles i.e. Bromley to Croydon when I lived up that way - there were literally days I could have driven from my parent's house in Somerset to work probably not much longer LOL.
I have to drive back to Dartford area from Croydon some weekends and it's sometimes taken me 2 hours plus so I feel your pain!
Associate
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- 3 Feb 2019
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Ipswich is a good example of the issues of the housing market all in one place. Wages on the whole across the town have flatlined, desirable areas seeing a huge price hike (I made £90k on my house in 5 years) buyers coming in from in London (I was seeing Ipswich advertised in London as the next hot investment spot), the affordable market bought and rented out to the large migrant population.
I have friends who rent who are finding it increasingly difficult to find housing as properties are snapped up as soon as they hit the market. The rental on my house would be double my mortgage.
All the new developments are aimed at the premium end of the market to capitalise on the Woodbridge area, which has been touted as the best place in the UK to live.
Ipswich is not a great commuter town due to the very high rail costs, so residents don't even have the option of seeking work in London.
My plan within the next 5 years is to buy a rental flat, which I have never been that interested in, for the sole purpose of giving to my kid when he wants to get on the ladder.
I have friends who rent who are finding it increasingly difficult to find housing as properties are snapped up as soon as they hit the market. The rental on my house would be double my mortgage.
All the new developments are aimed at the premium end of the market to capitalise on the Woodbridge area, which has been touted as the best place in the UK to live.
Ipswich is not a great commuter town due to the very high rail costs, so residents don't even have the option of seeking work in London.
My plan within the next 5 years is to buy a rental flat, which I have never been that interested in, for the sole purpose of giving to my kid when he wants to get on the ladder.
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Soldato
It's amazing the amount of kids from far less privileged backgrounds than someone born in the UK that I've seen progress through their careers, even to this day. 25 years ago when I was starting out on my career path there were similar kinds of excuses from similar people back then, blah blah recession means I can't get a good job or house, blah blah 8% interest rates (yes really) mean I'll never get a house, blah blah can't get a mortgage because they don't dish them out like candy.
It's interesting looking on Facebook now and seeing how different people I grew up with ended up in life, depending on the kind of attitude they had. The challenges are different now, but I still see the similarities.
It's interesting looking on Facebook now and seeing how different people I grew up with ended up in life, depending on the kind of attitude they had. The challenges are different now, but I still see the similarities.
Not really. they can all try harder, then the average will be higher. I dont know a single person who works 7 days a week. You are correct that younger people earn less on average and they are more likely to be in the lower wage brackets, but its not like they are only allowed to have one job. Its not like most of these people have children yet, so they cant really use the excuse that they dont have the time.
Soldato
"Young people should work 7 days a week" is not the solution I anticipated.
Soldato
There's 168 hours in a week, son. If you ain't using them all, you ain't working hard enough.
Soldato
Making some guesses as to when your grandfather bought his house, UK population in 1940: 46million. UK population today: 66 million. That's an increase of nearly 50%. Life expectancy (affecting how properties are released back onto the market or inherited) has risen from around 65 in the 1940s to around 75 today. Marriage rates have fallen to approximately one fifth of what they were in 1940 and whilst a proportion of that will be taken up by equivalent non-married but cohabiting relationships we should still expect a substantial rise in the number of people living alone.